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The Walking Dead

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You wake up in a hospital bed after getting shot on a routine car chase.  No machines are working to help you stay alive yet you are awake.  You try and call for help but there is no answer.  You finally get all unhooked from dead machines and leave your room.  You walk the halls of a deserted hospital to find the door to the morgue with a message written in blood: “Don’t Open, Dead Inside.”  Then the doors begin to move and a hand crawls out, dirty and broken and you turn around and get the hell out of the hospital to find rows and rows of dead, decaying bodies covered in white sheets outside.  No human around, just dead bodies and what you think look like zombies - at least that is what you would call them from movies and television shows.  So begins The Walking Dead on AMC.

The Walking Dead follows a group of survivors trying to stay alive in a world surrounded by zombies.  No one knows how it started but that isn’t the forefront of the show.  The show is about survival, being pushed to your limits and coming back unscathed.  The show is in its 3rd season and already has been renewed for a 4th.  The question becomes what makes this show great and different from all of the other post-apocalyptic zombie shows and movies? Many stations and studios are creating zombie and apocalypse creations today.  What makes The Walking Dead different is it isn’t about dying or being eaten alive.  It is about human nature, the dynamics that are created by the dead walking and eating the living.  What happens to the humans and what relationships they create is what The Walking Dead is all about.

Taking a break from the show premise for a split second, the cast of the show needs to be talked about.  The cast is amazingly spectacular.  I have seen a few of the actors in different roles but from the first episode of the series to the most recent season 3 episode you have no idea they are actors. They have become their characters.  The roles are personal for them and by watching you can tell these actors have put their heart and soul and so much more in it.  These actors are what make the show what it is. It is sad they are not recognized for their outstanding performances.

Even though the characters are alive and breathing, everyone has a breaking point.  Watching this show is almost like a countdown to see when each character’s breaking point is and what happens after.  This season especially is fascinating because of Rick, the impromptu leader and the one who woke up in the deserted hospital in the pilot episode.  He is slowly unraveling and everyone is seeing him unravel. The moment Lori (his wife) passed and was eaten he became another human being entirely; almost as if all of his hope for the future rested on her and without her he has nothing else to hold on to.   

The show’s creators are not afraid to push the envelope. No character is safe. No storyline is safe. One episode they could be in the prison (current season), the next they could end up back on the Greene farm (season 2) trying to rebuild.  There is no planning ahead for this group of survivors.  They have to plan for the moment and for some it is becoming too much. They want a reprieve; they want to know that in the end they will be ok that they are not fighting just to live until tomorrow.   But this brings up a subject that hasn’t been talked about on the show since the first season finale at the CDC – how did this epidemic start and will it ever be cured?  The show can dance around that question but eventually the viewers and characters are going to come to a point where they are done fighting each other and want to figure out a way to end all of this once and for all.

I watched the first 2 seasons in a span of a week – the show is simply amazing. The fact that it isn’t afraid to do anything, take on any storyline is a breath of fresh air because so many shows and networks are too afraid to piss someone off that they won’t take on the topics that many of the viewers want brought up.  For me, I can’t wait to see what happens when Rick and the Governor come face to face and if everyone can finally get along and stop fighting each other.  To learn more about Rick and the Governor and all of the other characters, watch The Walking Dead Sunday nights on AMC at 9pm.

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